Enter the Story of Jesus

hi Pastor Matt listen thank you for downloading or streaming this sermon pray that it blesses your heart two quick things that I want to lay before you before we get started in the proclamation of God's Word the first is and I love that you're dialing in to hear what the Lord's put on our heart here at TVC but I ask that you would only consume these messages as supplemental and in no way replacing your commitment and your listening to your local church pastor these are good gifts of God's grace for the people of God to grow in and yet they are not to replace ever meant to replace our belonging to a covenant community of faith where we are the the second thing want to lay before you is is that there are a lot of man-hours that men and women here at the village church put behind not just the creation of this but the creation of all kinds of resources that are meant to help you grow and develop as a disciple of Jesus Christ and so if this blesses you or the other resources that have been created have blessed you would you consider giving back to the village church to support not just these things with the creation of even more resources for you and really for anyone who wants to indulge in them now I pray that God stirs your affections for Jesus Christ as you listen now to the proclamation of God's Word stories are powerful stories captivate us and shape us and we can get distracted and disoriented by the false stories of our culture we buy into these tall tales because they project a picture of the good life that we think we need but each day God is calling us to be part of a greater story the true story of the world so how do we get back to this one true story for over 1,500 years the church calendar has given Christians a way to order our lives around God's story the story of Christ through five distinct seasons each of these seasons tell a part of the story of Christ starting with advant and is coming to earth and is a time of waiting and longing and ends with celebrating the birth of our Savior epiphany takes us to the manifestation of Christ the revealing of his divinity and his saving plan for the nation's Lent looks at the temptation and death of Christ and is a time for believers to examine and repent of our sin and Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Christ and the future hope we have in him in Pentecost reminds us of the mission of Christ to share the gospel by the power of the Spirit for us participating in the seasons is more than ritual and rhetoric it's a rhythm that turns our heads and hearts away from the false stories of the world and toward the story of God the story of Jesus well good morning hope you had a great Thanksgiving if you have your Bibles go ahead and grab those Ephesians chapter 2 is where we're gonna camp out in our time together last weekend I was in New York City with a group of Lauren and eyes closest friends we were celebrating a friend's 40th birthday a friend who will not go named per my fear of her and so we were in New York City everybody just kind of saved up their miles and we cashed it in and we went and we just played last weekend that that's what we did and on Sunday afternoon we all headed down to Broadway and and depending on what you willing to pay and how you were willing to kind of operate while you were in New York we ended up all seen different shows so one couple was willing to get up at 5:00 a.m. and go stand out in 30 40 degree weather it's in that line in the hopes that they might land Hamilton tickets I don't care that much and so no I'm on vacation I'm not getting up at 5:00 in the morning and standing out in the freezing cold just to see Hamilton I will see it like the rest of us cheaply when they finally make a movie and so I know to that and then another couple they wouldn't saw wicked we've seen wicked a couple of times so didn't feel like I needed to see wicked again and so that left me and two other couples going to see the Broadway play Katz and so I don't like I never thought I would say that sentence and there it is this is me just trusting you with my heart and so for two and a half hours I watched grown human beings dressed up as cats sing and dance and a couple of things like struck me while I was watching this one I can't do what they do had I given my entire life over to dressing up like a cat and dancing hi I lack the coordination ability and desire to do so and so Lorne and I took a couple hundred bucks and we threw it into a pool of what is nine hundred and fifty seven million dollars spent every year by Americans on Broadway shows not just going to Broadway but watching those shows as they travel across the United States nine hundred fifty seven million dollars spent on Broadway shows either on Broadway or in their traveling troupes and that's nothing compared to the four hundred and ninety billion dollars we spent watching movies last year right so if you install the Justice League or you in saw wander or you in saw during the break what will you did is you kind of threw some cash into this massive pile of money that we're spending being entertained by stories and then if we get into tea the average American watches five hours and four minutes I like I don't know what kind of algorithm they used to come up with that last four minutes it just seems simpler to me to go around five hours right but but five hours and four minutes daily watching television that number actually increases if you have a streaming service like Hulu Netflix or Amazon Prime and watch it on your tablet or your phone right and so let's I'm not gonna dog it's let me just start by saying that how many of you have a streaming service and tend to watch some of your favorite shows on your phone or tablet or some like it's okay safe I'm not gonna dog I've got some concerns but that's a different sermon for a different day right and so what's I think one of the things you're seeing in our willingness to throw that kind of money and that kind of time into being entertained by stories either that we can relate to or that we can escape from our story in write that that's why we watch these things one is it's a means of escape I don't have to think about my life again look I can watch something nonsensical or men I can really relate to that I want to see that that we are we have been hardwired by our Creator to be drawn into stories to enjoy them and to in a real way kind of need them and so before it was movies it was plays and before it was plays it was stories shared around a campfire or a dinner table and before it was those stories it was symbols and stories written on cave walls we can't escape the need for story in fact we were created in a story and for a story now the problem with our consumption of these stories and if you were here when JT English taught on the inerrancy of scripture he touched on this is that the profound impact that stories have on us is they disciple us they shape us they give us a worldview or a way of seeing the world around us and so there are five predominant false narratives that you and I are consuming on a daily basis if you're in the average category and pisar good don't know that anybody I'm friends with watches five hours of TV a day I'm most of the crew I remember doesn't have five hours a day to give to those things but the average American has five hours and four minutes don't forget about that four minutes that they they indulge in the intake of these false narratives I'm gonna walk through them very quickly the the first false narrative would be consumerism it's the story that the good life means that you have the kind of stuff that other people would look to you and say this person has value this person has wealth this person is to be emulated so consumerism says that the point of life is you getting more stuff now that's a false story that's a false narrative you will never be happier with more of what you already possess or you and me let like if your Datsun Maxima didn't make your soul happy then your 2017 Tesla sports car isn't either because the problems your heart not what you own right this is a false narrative more will make you happy the second false narrative would be secularism and and and secularism is that there are no fairies there's no god there's no magic all there is is what you can see what you can taste what you can touch what you can verify there's nothing besides that when you die you die and the sooner you dial into that the happier you'll be I mean if you think about how our culture tries to actively shame faith and belief in the supernatural you can see this narrative the third one don't fill up my inbox it's nationalism or the idea or concept that that if we could just maintain the purity of our own nation then then that that would make the world a better place and then from there you've got the the false narrative of progressivism the idea if we just keep making forward progress and reject yesteryear that they will somehow work our way towards utopia and then the last one and I think this is probably the most modern of them all is cynicism right the narrative of cynicism nothing can be trusted everybody's in it for their own gain nothing's really beautiful behind everything that's beautiful is something ugly so nothing can be trusted it's kind of the cynical twisting of our souls to doubt anything that's beautiful or good right these are kind of the false narratives and and we are drinking these in with every commercial with every TV show with every movie everybody's telling a story and these are the the most popular of the false narratives of our day and so as Christians we're gonna tend to at times stumble back into these stories right this is the air all around it so from time to time we're gonna believe the lie we're just gonna believe the lie that just a little bit more of this it's gonna make me better or man a doubt here or I'm not sure that's okay there we're gonna find ourselves tumbling into this story but but really how you and I must discipline ourselves is one knowing our own story that own the one true story really well so that we can spot the false narratives and then begin to live actively in our own story right because the the story that we believe as Christians is the only true story there actually is and so now if you just got jostled by that sentence I would just lay before you that mind guess if you got jostled by that is you've actually been discipled in these other narratives right so for me to say that the Christian story is the only true story and that bothers you like well surely that can't be true because this this and this I'm just saying pay attention to what story you've been discipled in then right like like we've been shaped by these things so if we're gonna have this conversation it's probably pretty important to know that we know our own story okay so let's look at this as Ephesians 2 starting in verse 1 we're gonna read 10 verses here and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world following the Prince of the power of the air the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature by birth children of Wrath like the rest of mankind but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk with Him now I love this text if you're a Christian this is our story you and I have this story in common that while you and while I we were dead in our trespasses and sins God made us alive in Christ and so I don't know where you were but but I was 17 years old when someone began to start to kind of cultivate in me a curiosity about the person and work of Jesus Christ and three days before my 18th birthday the Spirit of God awoke in my soul and I became alive in Christ I was dead in my trespasses and sins and God made me alive and if you're a Christian that is your story the only story there is dead in trespasses and sins which explains what's wrong with the world which explains where we've come from would explain all that's broken around us is wrapped up in this dead in trespasses and sins and God deep in love even while we were sinners sends the son and by grace through faith we're resurrected from death to life broken to put back together this is our story and it didn't happen because God was putting together an 18 well it's not by any works of our own that you weren't saved because your parents were good disciple makers you weren't saved because God looked at your unique skill set some yeah I could take some of that in my kingdom no no you you weren't saved because you used to get hide now you don't you weren't saved because you used to do this and now you know that's not why you were save you you were saved because God is gracious and kind and in His mercy saved you this is our sword this is what we have in common and this commonality transcends all of our differences that's why we can come together as a community of faith despite the fact that politically ethnically socioeconomically we would be in different places and yet what has made us one is this shared story and then he didn't just save us to himself but then if you see there in the very last verse verse 10 of Ephesians 2:1 through 10 that then God is now releasing us to do good works which he prepared for us to do so now you've got where we've come from what went wrong how God has fixed it and our purpose in life all in 10 verses this is our story and this story is incompatible with the five false narratives it's incompatible you cannot embrace our story and embrace these other stories see our story bids us be generous the false narrative consumerism would tell you to hoard or get your own but the story that we're living in is that everything we have has been given to us by the grace of God and therefore is to be held with open hands where we look for opportunities to be generous to others as we have been the recipients of such stunning generosity right there incompatible so here let Lee here's here's the weight of pastoral ministry I we get an hour and 20 minutes with you to help reorient you around the only true story and we get an hour and 20 minutes versus the five hours and four minutes of false narrative you get and I'm not even wrapping into that the the movies and the dollars and the Broadway shows so without really the Holy Spirit's power I'd be doing a different job right because you just don't stand a chance like humanly speaking I don't have a chance of an hour and 20 minutes undoing the false narratives and setting before you in remembrance what is true and that's why we're just gonna lean on the Holy Spirit's power and the church has been given over to reorient us around the story of Jesus now how does the church do that well two ways the first is the gathering that occurs every week so again my guess is you're more than likely like me growing up you kind of came to church occasionally or maybe even you came frequently but like what we do on the weekend this might surprise you none of its random like we didn't show up yesterday at around 3:00 a couple hours for the five o'clock and let me ask grant hey what are you feeling like what songs are like what songs you really like right now oh man I like these what do you feel it you know I'm just thinking about maybe doing them maybe doing a talk on the church calendar like I know everything we're doing from beginning to end has been meticulous prayed over and planned we're telling the story even in the gathering right so different songs different campuses maybe even different flow but always the same elements what do we do we came in and we started doing what started singing praises to God mine your praise is ever gonna be on my lips you are the creator you are the maker you are our God and then immediately we went into what confession confession of sin confession of need confession of desire and then we went back to praising God for His mercy and then we ended our singing with be the center right be the center of our hearts be the center of our life be the center of this church and now we're sitting under the word God and remembering our story and will conclude our time together in the breaking of bread and in the drinking of the cup and remembrance of mercy and grace in the weekly gathering every week we're telling the same story once had a woman told me that I say the same things every week and I said to her yes I do you don't want me like making up something new oh yeah you know I know last week I said the Jesus died and he rose from the grave this week however he didn't quite make it he quasi made it and didn't fully make it right that that's that's heresy right that's we don't want it we've got a story we need to retell that story over and over and over again in unique ways engage in the imagination rooted in the Word of God this is our story and every week why we come in here it's for an hour and 20 minutes we want to press pause on the false narratives I want to draw your attention in practice using your body using your mind to reorient around the only true story there is so the weekly gathering is one of the ways and then the other now is is this idea of seasons or the church calendar now if you've got a Catholic background you're probably give me a break brother I don't need to learn this but most of us are Protestants and this is scary for us so if you'll just be gracious to us while I explain this I think that that this will help now usually when you start talking church Kalen you don't need to take a picture of that or anything like that this is actually in your seasons guide you can find this digitally on our web page I was when I put quotes and stuff on let's see people try to take pictures you don't have to do this actually in a guide you might even be holding in your lap right now usually when you start talking about the church calendar people immediately kind of default into kind of legalism or ritualism and what I want to do is I want to spend some time talking about the why behind the what of the church calendar I want you I want to explain you what and I also want to here's the irony of the day and why I love this this is a tool it is not inerrant nor is it to press on us something that the Spirit of God isn't leading us into let me give you the perfect example according to the church calendar this is the first weekend of Advent am i preaching on Advent you should know the answer that I'm not are we decorated for Advent we're not are there trees and lights and all of that around me we're not see the Puritans would want white walls and the the freedom to preach Leviticus three on Christmas morning if they wanted to and here's what I would say to the Puritan god bless you go get it like we're not a slave to this this is a tool that the church has been using for 1500 years we just want to consider how it might be used to shape us as the people of God so again this isn't authoritative it's just something given to the church that helped shape Durand I just want to walk you through it the first season in the church calendar is adamant by the way if you see that big orange block a little less than half of the years what's just called ordinary time I don't know I like that I just like it's like ash its ordinary guys just do an ordinary stuff in that ordinary time so but the first season outside of ordinary time is the season of Advent now we've been doing Advent here for five six seven years Advent celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ it begins with a time of waiting and longing and ends in a celebration of the birth of our Savior the Messiah the the posture of Advent is yearning expectant hopeful celebratory the symbols that will often be used in Advent are a wreath or candles or trees the season progresses from dark to light right from longing to the arrival so we'll start Advent next week and when you come in here next weekend we're gonna be decorated out I'm gonna talk about the second coming of Jesus Christ in our first week of Advent if you're like why would you talk about the second coming of Jesus before you talk about the first coming of Jesus because I think if we could get our minds around Christ stepping into this broken space in this moment of history and making all things new and healing all that's broken we might get a sense of the longing of our brothers and sisters 2,000 years ago for the coming of Jesus so we'll start Advent next week it'll be a few weeks leading up to Christmas morning where we celebrate that the Messiah has come it's a beautiful season that Orient's our hearts around the coming of Jesus that moves in by the way admin has its own colors colors are blue gold and white so historically when the church would decorate for Advent they would use those colors to decorate their auditoriums if you grew up in a traditional Baptist Church or a traditional Anglican Church or something like this you know all about this you might even have like a hanging of the green on a Thursday night or something like that where you kind of came together and decorated the sanctuary as a body and then Advent moves into epiphany and epiphany is about the manifestation of Jesus Christ we talk about the manifestation of Jesus Christ what we're talking about is that Christ is revealing that he is divine and that his plan is that the nation's would be saved and so epiphany is marked by its posture is celebratory it's joyful it's restful it's evangelistic the symbols are candles again I think candles are assemble in each of these seasons but candles are star three crowns we'll talk about why the three crowns on epiphany Sunday we'll be preaching a sermon around this but this is focusing on Christ revealing his divinity and his saving plan for the nations in here now now I want you to watch how how the calendar starts to shape us as a body and in the first sentence you've created an adman this longing this desire that gives way to this celebration and then you enter into Epiphany where Christ has manifested himself as divine and has revealed his plan to not save one small ethnic group in the Middle East but to go to the ends of the earth and to bring unto himself men and women of every tribe tongue and nation on earth you and I are in this room because the manifestation of Jesus Christ now this is a season historically where the sermons and the season of the life of the church is to call the people of God to recommit Minh and to renewal so you can see how this starts to shape a people we've gone from longing to celebrating now to considering how we might repent how we might recommit those areas of our lives were not wholeheartedly following Jesus it's a pull on those places where we've drifted into false narratives to repent of that and come back to the true story it's what happens during Epiphany and then we move into lens and lenses about the temptation and death of Jesus it begins with 40 days of prayer and fasting now we don't we've done a lint guide here for the last few years if you think all of this is new you just haven't been paying a lot of attention we've done a Linda we consider the seasons like ambient music are you tracking with me on that like the seasons Fred never gonna be like upfront and or in the season of Epiphany it's gonna be like background music just kind of like the soundtrack of our church are you with me in that like ambient music like when you're watching a movie all sudden you're feeling emotions and you're not sure why it's probably cause some guys on the sense you know in the background yeah and so what happens then at lens is we enter into a season of lamenting and mourning we don't practice Lent so that we might be righteous but rather to line our hearts up with the sufferings of Jesus Christ to remember the Christ heads to the cross to bear my sin my shame and in a day and age in which instant gratification and getting all that we want is really really easy giving ourselves over to a season of wanting of creating longing of identifying with the sufferings of Jesus Christ thickens our experience deepens our understanding and expands our joy at the next season so Lent is a darker season in fact in churches that really operate in this liturgical calendar like the lights would be lo the entire season of Lent and and all my Catholics and Anglicans right now are like absolutely I remember that I never understood it right so if it was dark and then you wouldn't sing a lot of peppy songs you know everything's gonna be you'd even kind of remove like like certain portions of certain songs that were a little bit too much focused on resurrection or new life or you know when you want to feel the weight of the temptation torture and death of Jesus Christ the only celebratory moments in this season of Lent would would actually be Palm Sunday the weekend before and that's when man again if you grew up in this tradition the little kids would kind of come down to palm branches and it'd be like your first kind of oh wait maybe there's hope here and then Maundy Thursday and then Good Friday how many of you been to our Good Friday services all right now you know the weight of that like how even on like glorious day we like took out the last verse about the resurrection of Jesus why because we were focusing on the death of Jesus that it's dark it's quiet it's summer this is the posture of Lent by the way the colors around Lent are purple black and red it's a time of examining our hearts and repenting of our sins and then that gives way to Easter and Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus and if you have done Lent well then Easter will not sneak up on you like if you have done well Easter will will be a time of celebration at the resurrection of Jesus Christ so this is a time of ongoing celebration about and consideration of the future hope because Jesus has defeated sin and death it's colors are white purple and gold that'll be the suit I wear this year the the posture is celebratory courageous joyful and hopeful the symbols are an empty tomb sunrise lilies and a flowering cross let me chat about Easter celebratory all of that I read in Martyn lloyd-jones book on revival he said one of the great enemies of revival is a lack of enthusiasm among the people of God like I I long for us to be more enthusiastic about Jesus I'm not sure what it is that Dan and dampers our celebratory capacities I really don't know what it is because I live among you I know that you have an extra gear I know you do like like I my kids play sports I'm at all these events I've been at Marcos football games for you know eight nine years like I've seen you explode in celebratory praise until it comes to something like you know I don't know Jesus killing death forever you know and then something like that you're like oh that is exciting so so it's like the Dallas Cowboys even when they're terrible get all kinds of priority and celebratory hump from you and the resurrected King gets barely a clap we got to get better at this just got to get better like whatever this is that dampens our enthusiasm and I don't know if it's we want to look cool or we want to look all together or we don't want somebody to think we're an overly emotional freak again I just want to point out that none of that fear exists when you're watching your college team play right it just doesn't like brothers you in particular like you yell at the television right you yell at the television you're emotionally affected you're right like and I live in that like I know what happens when your son it's a double your daughter gets on base like we freaked out about that stuff just can't believe it it's here and then man when it comes to kind of these eternally significant unbelievable true realities we're like yeah and even that was more than I think we usually give like right there some of your like I would never do that you are crazy right so so there's got to be there's got to be another gear and us where we learned that it's okay to celebrate it's okay to be joyful it's okay to live like we believe this is true we can you imagine and then this gives way to Pentecost Pentecost is about the Spirit of Jesus Christ this season ends the official church calendar by reflecting on the sending of the Holy Spirit in the birth of the church it reminds us of our unity with Christ and are called to share Christ by the power of the Spirit and again the posture is joyful excited intentional missional the symbols are fire when doves and red flags up in a costume does that sound all right what's happening here we've been filled with the holy spirit we've been sent and we haven't been sent by our own power been sent by the power of the Holy Spirit we cannot fail again this is it's a great time to reorient our hearts around evangelistic fervor because the nations will be glad there are men and women out there right now in our neighborhoods at our workplaces around our kids activities who have been bought with the blood of Jesus they need only here they need only here they need only to be invited in I'm just not sure what to say okay that's what you're putting too much weight on yourself right it's Jesus that saves not your presentation of him it's your courageous belief in and a life marked by zeal for him that's the apologetic any other question you can find the answer to right this is what Pentecost does it reorient us now how God has shaped his people since since we've got record right if you begin to study the Bible God shapes his people like this he shapes his people through feasts he shapes them through fasts and he shapes them through festivals right that's how that's our that's I just did some alliteration there you're welcome all right and so you've got these three apps let me walk through this here's the first one the idea of a feast there are a few things that communicate in a very tangible visceral way God's invitation to us to join him like a good feast my friend I've got a friend that pastors a church in New York City it's actually a church plant there and one of the congregations was about 48 50 people and man he'd just get a sense man that they were losing hearts and that there wasn't a lot of zeal for the Lord then men though the weight and difficulty of life in New York City was just sucking the life out of them and so we had his wife and his staff go all across the city and buy the best breads the best bottles of wine the best cuts of meat the best and it all set up on a table behind this curtain and he got up so think 40 people jammed in to a room a feast behind a curtain and he began to just talk about the love of God the invitation to join him that God had set a table for them in the presence of their enemies and they weren't invited that table with heads hanging low but with bright eyes and and new spiritual robes invited to sit at the Kings table and then they pulled back that curtain and then just the best of everything was there and for the next few hours they just feasted together as a community of faith and and John said that at the middle of that this woman came up to him just tears streaming down her face and she just said man I've been a prodigal I came to New York running from the Lord I was able to recreate myself here I've been miserable and and this feast is for me I'm the prodigal coming home like that's the power of feast listen me learn to do this well that same crew I go to New York City with we have done a New Year's Eve feast for over a decade like and here's what happens they they everybody we kind of start going through who's bringing what and you don't get to bring a can of pickled beets right you'll get to do that I mean you can bring that but I'm not unlocking the door right you're just gonna stand out there with your can of beets and not enjoy the feast right the Lord's feast is far more generous than ours and so last year everybody showed up at my house at like it's sort of like 4:00 in the afternoon and and it ended at 2:00 a.m. and we cooked together and we laughed and we told it is very intentional like what is God done in your life this past year what are you longing for him to do in this next year like just some great dialogue over great food and great wine and we laughed a lot we told stories and there are no kids at this other than mine kind of lurking in the background because they live there right even though they're getting all enough now to want to go out and do their own things but man they were there last year and I want him to see this I want him to see mom and dad and their friends laughing eating drinking feasting this shapes us reminds us of the generosity of God we've got to get better at doing this but it's not just feasting it's also at times fasting so I said this earlier but I want to flesh it out a little bit more you and I live in a day and age that that if there is not some sort of difficulty some sort of disease some sort of unmet expectation areal sense of longing is easy to medicate right and so if we're hungry it's really easy for most of us to get food right if we have a headache it's pretty easy for most of us to grab cements that's not sure about all of us but it is true about most of us where if we want this we want this we want this we can go get it and if we've got a sense of longing that we don't know what to do it's really easy to know you know how by binging on your favorite show on Netflix which happens to be in your pocket right so we can numb longing and yet it's the cultivation of longing that ultimately leads to greater celebration and joy when we meet what we actually most longed for whether we know that's what we most longed for or not love this quote by John Piper this quote probably will make you think that you don't want to hang out with him but he's a good dude here we go the greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie it is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven but endless nibbling at the table of the world it is not the x-rated video but the primetime dribble of triviality that we drink in every night do you hear what he's saying what dulls our senses what dulls our appetite for the things of heaven is not the x-rated video it's the endless nibbling at worldly fleshly things that fills up our spirits with a faux sense of satisfaction that ultimately leads us into really thin living fasting creating seasons in which we purposefully cultivate longing and and this is why fasting from food right is more than just a health benefit I think that's the way people talk about it now Oh intermittent fasting it'll make you healthier it's not what we're talking about here but we're talking about I am going to rob myself of something I want for something greater but that that is a profoundly powerful spiritual practice to cultivate longing to cultivate a desire for more and then you've got feasts and you got fast and finally you've got festivals here's my friend Jeff and erste every culture has celebrations your job as a Christian is to engage in the celebration with those people we bring the better wine we bring what is lacking we ought to be known as the greatest party people on the planet we ought to party like crazy because we actually have something to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus right so here's van der stolz point he's okay oh wow all right there's that enthusiasm kinda all right now what we see happening and if you'll really give yourself over to a study of this like in the Old Testament you know what God is setting up for his people festivals over and oh and like the kind of festivals where the nation shuts down for a couple of weeks and gives themselves over to the best of what the nation had to offer to rejoice in the goodness of God in fact God will threaten them on more than one occasion for not doing it I mean you you want to think about a picture of God that few of us have like God on more than one occasion threatened the people of Israel what will happen to them if they show up to the party late or if they don't come at all literally threatens death if you continue to work if you continue to have your servants work if you show up late so you can get a little bit of extra work in before you come to the party I will kill you I'm not making that that's not that might be you know the New Living Translation of that but it's in the Bible all right so you've gotten this God that invites his people into what to feasts and to fasts and to festivals and what does this do it it shapes us it shapes us as the people of God the church calendar helps orient us around these things we will not be slaves to this but this will be a tool that we utilize now a couple of things I want to chat about just in conclusion here yesterday morning I was reading 2nd Kings don't ask any questions like you are a loser maybe and here's here's what I came across I mean let me set the context people of God surprise surprise or disobedient the rebellion against God and so they are yet again a portion of their land is taken from them and the portion of land that was taken to them is resettled by the Assyrians and they tear down the altars to God and they build the altars to bail and so God sends Lions to kill the Assyrians so these lions are kind of think ghosts in the darkness right there there I just dated myself some you don't know what I'm talking about some of you're with me but but these lions are killing by the can't figure it out they can't get rid of lines I kill one line another line comes back they can't stop these lines so in the ancient Near East mindset they they thought men we we have angered the God of this territory we don't know how to live in this land and so they send word to the king of Assyria Lions are killing we don't know how to please the god of this land will you send us one of the Exile will you send us one of the people that we have captured to teach us how to live according to this God's Way so these lions will go away it's a fascinating story so the king of Assyria finds a Levitical priest and sin the Levitical priest into land who then teaches the Assyrians who have mixed with the people of God how to live in such a way to please the God of that land and then you find this verse in second Corinthians 17 33 so they feared the Lord but they also served their own gods after the manner of the nations from mum whom they had been carried away so both the Assyrians and the people of God feared God but still worshiped other gods and then 17 ends in verse 41 with this one and this one really kind of struck me to the heart yesterday so these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images their children did likewise and their children's children as their fathers did so they do to this day now my great concern for us is that in a day of such vast consumption of false narratives but the tendency you and I are going to have is to fear the Lord but worship other gods to combine the stories are you with me to say Jesus is Lord but my money is mine Jesus is Lord as long as he doesn't do anything supernatural that wigs me out Jesus is Lord but the United States of America is the hope of the world Jesus is Lord and yet I think everybody in organized religion is actually about themselves they're in it for the money and they're not really serving the Lord they're just trying to fleece the flock Jesus is Lord but do you see how these are these are false narratives woven into the true story now here's my appeal and my fear I think Matt McCauley said this last week and he said it last week Matt McCall is our family minister here at the flower mound campus and so man we're a part of this growing young cohort out at fuller seminary with Darrell layman one of our elders bruno myself chris groover and matt and here's what we learned there's data now to back this up kids are not being secularized in college they're being secularized at home before they're sent to college by well-meaning Christian parents that can't tease out the value balance between sports and activities and the gathering of the people of God like they just get disoriented by and I'm watching it even play out in my children's peers look look I can use my son as an example like my son loves football he loves basketball like he loves it he's disciplined around at he's eager for sometimes he doesn't want to come to church but guess who doesn't get to decide that read you know why because he's 12 I don't let him choose what he gets to eat or he would eat terribly I don't let him choose what time he didn't go to bed right I don't let him handle a firearm whenever he wants to you know why because I'm dad and I love him and I've got a long view for his life that at 12 he couldn't possibly fathom and so what ends up happening like I'm telling you I've got a front-row seat to this right now because of the age of my kids I like I just hear these nonsensical things from moms and dads it's like oh you know we just just like trying to get him out of bed on Sunday mornings just like a whippin I just man just want to give him the freedom to kind of figure this stuff out okay like would you do that in any other area of your kid's life like if your kid was like you know what school I just can't mom I just can't do it look the teachers mean I don't even understand what she's talking about you know out of that seven eight hour day we only get to play and have fun for one 45-minute block of that I'm just not doing it I'm not doing it mom like can you imagine like going and trying to wake up your kid for school at whatever time you got to wake him up and I'm just going I'm not feelin I'm not going oh okay well never mind then and then you write like that like to parent that way and listen I I'm for you I'm not against you I'm not trying to shame you to parent this way this is what's true about the data half-hearted obedience to Jesus Christ in this generation leads to full rebellion against him in the next now here's what's crazy the kingdom of God can't be stopped so if it's not our children will live faithfully to follow Jesus and make much of his name and renown he will save from among the lost and broken so that the kingdom continues don't forget Paul didn't exist he was Saul of Tarsus killing Christians when Steve Stephen was martyred and they had no view of how this was gonna play out what did God do got saved from among the most broken and most dark for the glory of his name no no I'm I'm dedicated to his best I can and I don't control it helping my children see and understand what is of supreme value and what's a good gift like look at me football is a good gift basketball is a good gift softball soccer good get band good gift terrible God's terrible God's I wonder sometimes if I we've wrapped up our own value in it right like we need our kid to be the best at these things because it's a reflection on us you cannot combine these two stories they're incompatible so let me walk through them again consumerism will never mix with generosity these are opposing belief systems right where the world says what you need to be whole you need to be happy what you mean to satisfy yourself is more stuff and bigger things and bigger barns and more money and a 401k we can live to be 100 ninety thousand years old and a right let like this idea is it's incompatible with everything you have has been given to you by the grace of God and should be held with open handed generosity there are two different stories they they don't they can't be the same story secularism will not mix with radical faith this won't it might be able to mix with half-hearted faith but it's never gonna mix with radical faith nationalism will never mix with the kingdom of God and I'll just say it I have more in common with an Iranian Christian that I'll ever have with an unbelieving American I have more in common with an Iranian Christian that I'll ever have with an unbelieving American because the two of us will be together for eternity works being the king of kings and Lord of lords right progressivism does not mix with God's sovereign rule and cynicism can never mix with gladness and again I've said this to you multiple times like that I want to readjust say it again one of the greatest apologetics you could have in our day and time is to have a heart of gladness to not give into the cynicism and anger of our day to be an optimist to speak life about people to not participate in the tearing of others down to recognize their strengths and bring up their strengths even as others are tearing them out you know weird of a human being you're gonna be if they're like man she's always this one he's oh I can't believe him he's really doing this and you're like but you know have you ever watched how he man that guy really loves his kids I'll tell you what man he's doing the best he can to do this and this man you start speaking life about people and it's gonna give people whiplash in 2017 being kind is this massive apologetic being grateful being glad I mean it's almost it could be offensive to be glad like to have a smile on your faith to treat people like they're humans like like this is this is an apologetic and it can't be told along the same story of cynicism their opposite narratives I'm hopeful I'm hopeful moving into Advent next weekend and here's like if all of this is too much for you let me let me just lay this before you let's just take some baby steps can we do baby steps together let's do this because maybe this is all too much like oh my gosh bro I grout I hadn't read this much since college like I'm not like that this is you you killed me as soon as you rolled this out bro if this has been in like the size of a blog and a really short blog I might have been with you but this is uh like this you just assured right now that I'm not even gonna try okay so let's talk baby steps baby steps now I know if this was like the Cowboys playbook you might dig into this I'd probably be shorter but it would still it's been a tough year it's been a tough year that was that forgive me I won't do that again I know where I am so let's do this so in in this guide that that you can grab one on your way out or if you're less tectile and more technological you can just download this onto your device right and and check it out between shows but but in here let's just do this let's just do Advent together coming do that let's just we've got eight here's what you can do anything for like three and a half weeks that's how much I believe in you you can do anything for three and a half weeks so so what we're gonna do is you've got Advent and then in the Advent God what you've got is you've got an explanation of what it is and then you've got these these readings these readings and devotionals and family activities because what we're wanting to do is orient our hearts and lives around the coming of Jesus that's what we want to be about the next four weeks right because somebody actually has seen you while you're sleeping and they also know when you're awake they also know that you've been far more bad than good and His grace will cover you anyway for goodness sakes all right and so if we could orient around oh that really I talked about the resurrection and nothing and I take a shot at Santa and you applauded that all that's wrong with evangelicalism now here's the plan this is week one there are readings Sunday through Friday so we're giving you Saturday off to catch up right we're gonna do these readings together and there's family devotionals and reflections and one of the things we want to add during Advent we're not gonna do it during the Epiphany we are gonna come back to it in Lent but one of the things we're gonna do during the Advent season here in Flower Mound is starting next Monday not this Monday but the following Monday we're gonna open up sweet 165 next door and we're gonna come anyone who wants to come during their lunch hour we're gonna read these texts out loud and we're gonna pray together to orient our hearts around the season of Advent and so if you have 12 to 1 open come and join us in suite 165 if we overflow out of that we'll just come in here but it's a good way to just kind of already in our hearts and you can do this it's three and a half four weeks of reading the Word of God together as a family of faith coming together if you can during your lunch break from Monday through Thursday we won't do it Friday or Saturday but we are gonna do it Monday through Thursday it'll be led by either one of our staff members some of our prayer team members some of our home group leaders but we're gonna be and once expeller just gonna read it out loud we're gonna reorient our hearts around the things of God in this season I'm hopeful for what all this means about us being shaped moving forward let's pray father I thank you for these men and women I thank you that you love us enough enough to shape us and mold us to make us more like Jesus I thank you for even how you go about that through feasts of celebrations festivals of partying and fast meant to stir up and cultivate longing in our hearts I pray even as we enter into Advent next weekend that our hearts would not get swept away into the shadows but rather cling to the substance we celebrate not winter solstice we celebrate the coming of the king we celebrate not spring we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and his victory over death we cultivate mourning and longing we cultivate a desire for the kingdom of God to be made more visible we celebrate being filled with the Holy Spirit we ask you even now shape us mold make us more like you it's for your beautiful name I pray amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 11,671

Rating: 4.8036809 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, Seasons, Enter the Story of Jesus

Id: qWdsrIdSGoU

Length: 56min 6sec (3366 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 27 2017